Cruzio Newsletter - Number 106, July 9, 2007
1. Moving? Cruzio Can Help
2. Brown Bag Workshop This Thursday: Web 2.0 Tools
3. Web 2.0 Defined
4. Give Us a Piece of Your Mind: Take the Cruzio Survey
5. Hands-on Classes This Month:
One Day Blog 7/24, One Night Web Site 7/26
6. 1/2 Off Computer Tuneup When You Purchase Cruzio DSL
7. Gizmo of the Month: The Digital Memory Card
8. Spam Status Report
9. Be Proud: Your Email Does Not Contain ISP Spam
10. Port 25
11. Cruzio's New Summer Hours
12. New Charge: Backup Dialup on DSL
13. Class Schedule Through August
14. Buddy Bucks
15. Feed the Hungry, We'll Waive Your Late Fees
16. About This Newsletter
17. How to Reach Cruzio (Dial-in or Tech Support)
1. Moving? Cruzio Can Help
This time of year we see blue skies (sometimes), tourists, and
rental vans double-parked as people move into new homes. We hope
when you move you'll bring your Cruzio connection with you, and
we'll make your Internet move as easy as we possibly can.
Just call us a few weeks before you move, especially if you have
DSL or plan to cancel your phone line, to minimize fuss and
bother. We do moves every day and we can make it easy if you let
us know.
When you move, don't forget to check if your new location can get
a higher speed DSL. Give us a call and we will check for you.
DSL 3.0 and 6.0 are great for games, Web browsing, and downloading
music and video clips. Higher bandwidth also helps when you share
a connection among an office or a family's multiple computers.
More about moving at:
http://www.cruzio.com/services/highspeed_access/move_dsl.html
2. Brown Bag Workshop This Thursday: Web 2.0 Tools
"Web 2.0 Tools for Businesses and Non-Profits"
Thursday, July 12th, 12:00 - 1:30 pm, $10.00
903 Pacific Avenue, Downtown Santa Cruz
We call pre-Web 2.0 sites "static." Wouldn't your organization
do better with a dynamic site, where the users themselves put
in their 2 cents? A blog, a comment section, even logins and
passwords for each member?
Come to Cruzio this Thursday to hear how a community site can
create excitement for your business or non-profit organization.
Cruzio's Marketing Manager Westi Haughey, herself an experienced
Web 2.0 site designer, will show you the array of easy-to-install
tools which can change your site from blah to bravo!
3. Web 2.0 Defined
In your travels around the Internet, you may have seen the term
"Web 2.0." For example, in this newsletter you may read that
Cruzio provides Web 2.0 tools and that we're teaching a workshop on
Web 2.0 this week. We find that people use this term in different
ways so here's an attempt to clear it up.
Web 2.0 refers to the latest trend in Web sites containing interactive
features where people visiting the site are encouraged to write reviews,
post photos, even create their own pages. The site is the readership,
the readership is the site. Web 2.0 sites look more like MySpace and
less like Google.
When you look up a term like "Web 2.0," where do you go first? Many
of us shoot right over to Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org ).
Interesting because Wikipedia is itself a great example of Web 2.0.
Anyone can create or edit a page: we are reading each other's work.
Wikipedia's page on Web 2.0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
reminds us that Internet veterans disagree that there's anything new
to this model. In fact, the Web was always meant to be interactive.
But there is definitely a change in the last few years as developers
are creating more tools with participation in mind -- like blogs,
surveys, feeds, and content management systems which can be used to
create a lively community site.
If you are interested, come to our Web 2.0 workshop (see item #2 above),
or to one of our hands-on classes where we create pages using these tools.
4. Give Us a Piece of Your Mind: Take the Cruzio Survey
A five-minute survey is up for Cruzio members to enter your opinions
and ideas. We'd like to hear from as many people as we can, so if
you haven't filled it out yet, please do! We're paying close attention
to the reactions and comments of every single person who answers it.
So be one of those people. Why not do it now? Just pop over to:
http://survey.cruzio.com
Our survey is especially fun because we built it ourselves. Our
marketing and publishing teams set it up and it's got a great look
and feel. It's the kind of feature you can build, too -- survey
software comes free with Website Plus or Premium on Cruzio.
(By the way, if you'd like to see a survey-building class, please
let us know.)
Many thanks to the folks who already filled out the survey,
and thanks in advance to everyone who's about to. The survey closes
July 15th, so visit soon! We'll let you know some of the results in
the newsletter.
5. Hands-on Classes This Month:
One Day Blog 7/24, One Night Web Site 7/26
Creating a new blog or Web site is inexpensive (Cruzio Website Plus
and Premium include the tools for free) and new software makes it easy.
But sometimes you need a boost to get you started. Cruzio's hands-on
classes are designed with exactly that in mind: you'll get a new
site off the ground in just a couple of hours in a fully-equipped,
supportive environment. You don't need to study or prepare beforehand,
although we encourage you to daydream about the blog or site you'd
like to have. We're using the same tools that industry leaders use
on their sites, so you'll be able to achieve a sophisticated,
professional look.
Each of our hands-on classes has a maximum of 8 students to two
instructors. That means that as you create your Web site, you'll
get an answer to most every question you have and you'll be able to
move quickly from dreaming about a new site to actually having one.
One Day Blog
Tuesday, July 24th, 9:00 - 11:00 AM, $99.00
903 Pacific Avenue, downtown Santa Cruz
One Night Web Site
Thursday, July 26th, 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM, $199.00
903 Pacific Avenue, downtown Santa Cruz
Register (and learn more) at
http://classes.cruzio.com
You will need a Website Plus or Premium account to take a hands-on
class, if you don't already have one or aren't sure please give us
a call.
6. 1/2 Off Computer Tune-up When You Purchase Cruzio DSL
It's amazing what people will live with sometimes. Web browsers
blighted by popup windows, computers that crash or run like molasses.
There are good options for folks whose computers or connections are
slow: right now you can save money by upgrading both at the same time.
Until September 30, 2007, you or a friend can get 1/2 off on
one of Cruzio's popular Computer Care Tune-ups when you order new
DSL service. Our tune-up will speed up your computer, and our
DSL will speed up your Internet. It's a great match.
And please remember that as a Cruzio member you can always get
$20 off any of our computer tune-ups any time. There is no reason to
let your computer slow you down. Bring your computer in, you'll
love the difference.
7. Gizmo of the Month: The Digital Memory Card
There are two reasons to take a photograph: as a record or as art.
Some photographers, like Mathew Brady who took the famous likenesses
of Abraham Lincoln, create art and public records at the same time.
(You can see his work on the penny and the five-dollar bill).
The age of the digital camera is upon us, and even Brady would today
be carrying a pocket point-and-shoot to augment his heavyweight single
lens reflex mainstay -- that's the minimum equipment necessary for a
serious photographer today.
And Brady's pockets would no doubt be full of photo memory cards in
their little plastic cases.
As digital cameras evolve, they create larger and larger images which
are stored on tinier and tinier cards. Cruzio carries 2.0 GB SD Memory
cards at just $34.99 each. Not much thicker than a fingernail, they
hold hundreds of high quality mega-pixel photos each.
A friend was once robbed on vacation in Turkey, and he told us
that he did not mind the loss of the camera as much as losing the
memory card which held all his photos. Don't keep all your photos
on one card. Get a spare or two, and keep one in your suitcase
while you're out on the town.
When you are done taking your pictures, you can upload them from the
card to your computer. From there, you can print them out, or email
them to your friends and family, or -- best of all -- put them up
on a Web page. Cruzio's new Web 2.0 tools include easy-to-use online
photo gallery software. In no time, you can have those family reunion
pictures available to the whole family.
In fact, if there is a spot like Cruzio's store where you vacation,
you can upload your photos via rental computers and publish them
before you even return home.
8. Spam Status Report
The latest virus bedeviling the Internet promises you a postcard from
a "friend" or "family member." If you click on the "postcard" link,
a script will attempt to install a spam-creating bot on your computer.
The description of how it works reads like a big budget sci-fi thriller:
"Antivirus vendors had tentatively pegged the executable
malware as a variation of the Storm Trojan, an aggressive
piece of malware that has been hijacking computers to serve
as attacker bots since early this year. Computers already
compromised by Storm -- a.k.a. Peacom -- are hosting the
malware, and the attackers are rotating those machines' IP
addresses in the spam they're sending."
The movie "Transformers" comes to mind.
Please watch out for this scheme, and for scams like it. Most of us
know by now that email attachments should not be opened unless you know
what it is and who it is from, and anti-virus software is getting
good at locating trojan horse threats in attachments. So the spammers
are moving on.
The more popular scheme now is to get people to go to a Web site and
click on links there. The links activate scripts which will look for
and exploit weaknesses on your computer.
In the postcard-scam case, millions of people have clicked on the
link and if they don't have up-to-date virus protection they may now
have a zombified computer. Don't be fooled; don't go there.
Some current statistics on spam, Internet-wide:
- 10 out of 11 email messages are now spam
- One in 14 email messages carries a virus
- 10 in 22 connections to mail servers are probes by spammers
In a single month last year (September to October, 2006) spam
around the Internet increased by 59%.
It's quite a battle we are fighting here! Please help us by keeping
your computer's virus-detection software up to date, and think before
you click on those emails. We'll contact you if we detect you are
zombified -- hopefully that is a reassuring statement. And if you
think you might have the virus you are welcome to bring your computer
in for a free 15-minute diagnostic.
9. Be Proud: Your Email Does Not Contain ISP Spam
Does it bug you that some friends who use another Internet provider
send an advertising blurb at the bottom of every email message?
Something like this:
"Tired of spam? Brand Y Email has the best spam protection around!"
(note the irony: isn't this message spam?):
Unlike Cruzio, many email services attach ads to the bottom
of every email a person sends. There's no payment or reduction of
fees for sending an ad to every person emailed. That's been bad
enough, especially if customers are paying for email service
(which most people are).
Now it's gone even farther. The ads are bigger and more obnoxious than
ever. Here's an example:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,18459010
And some ISPs are experimenting with a method of putting ads on
every single page you view in your Web browser:
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ISPs-Injecting-Ads-Into-Pages-85222?brk=2
Rest assured, Cruzio does not consider the email you send an
advertising medium and will leave your Web page content alone.
10. Port 25
As we've mentioned in prior newsletters, in order to be a good
netizen and help prevent spam, Cruzio must close off outgoing port
25 to non-Cruzio IP addresses. We are scheduled to make this
change for customers using dynamic IP addresses on Tuesday,
August 7th. This will not affect over 99% of our customers.
If you have been using port 25 -- for example, if you've set up
your own mail server -- please let us know. We'll create a
workaround to accomodate your needs. Email us at helpdesk@cruzio.com
or call 459-6301.
11. Cruzio's New Summer Hours
Our Santa Cruz sales office will be open an hour earlier in the
summer, so people who need to stop by to use a computer, ask
a question or make a payment can stop in on their way to the
beach (or work). We'll be opening our doors at 9 am Monday
through Saturday. Cruzio technical support still opens at 8am
Monday through Friday, 10 am Saturday.
12. New Charge: Backup Dialup on DSL
Unfortunately, costs have risen and Cruzio is no longer
able to provide a free backup dialup number to DSL customers.
We will begin charging a very small monthly sum -- 82 cents
-- for this service as of next month.
We highly recommend that you maintain a dialup service to
back up your DSL. It comes in handy when you are traveling
or if there is a problem with the lines. The fee is quite
small and it is a kind of insurance. However, it is optional
and if you'd like to remove the service please contact us.
13. Class Schedule Through August
July
12th "Web 2.0 Tools for Business or Non-profit" Brown Bag
24th "One Day Blog" Hands-on Class
26th "One Night Web Site" Hands-on Class
August
16th "Troubleshooting Your Computer" Brown Bag
23rd "Photo Gallery" Hands-on Class
25th Computer Care Clinic
30th "Advanced Blogging" Hands-on Class
This schedule is subject to change, so please check our
Web site to confirm and register:
http://classes.cruzio.com
14. Buddy Bucks
Recommend us to friends, family, colleagues: if a new customer
gives us your email address, registration number, or full name when
they sign up you'll get $10 credit to your account. If two friends
sign up, $20. Three friends, $30. It just goes on and on.
15. Feed the Hungry, We'll Waive Your Late Fees
If you're late on a payment to Cruzio, turn it into a donation
to hungry folks in our community. We will waive your late
fee if you bring 3 cans into our office for our Second Harvest
Food Bank barrel. Learn more about this charity at
http://www.thefoodbank.org
16. About This Newsletter
Cruzio doesn't like to waste bandwidth with extra email, but we sometimes
have events and announcements that users need to know about. This seems
like the most efficient way to let people know what's happening. Hope
it's helpful. Please email support@cruzio.com with any comments or questions.
By the way, we would love to have a regular, predictable schedule
for this newsletter...but we simply do not send it unless there is real
news enclosed. Thus the haphazard datelines.
17. How to Reach Cruzio (dial-in or tech support)
To reach the Cruzio Information Center, for online technical and
sales information:
http://www.cruzio.com/support
To dial in to Cruzio, set your software to dial one of the numbers
below (note: we've expanded and joined modem pools, so you may be
using another number. If so, don't worry, it still works just fine).
Dialup (in Santa Cruz County): 459-9408
Nationwide Dialup: Look up local number on our Web page:
http://www.cruzio.com/support/dialup_isdn/nationwide_numbers.html
or call Cruzio toll free, 1.800.303.3302
To call Cruzio:
459-6301............Use this number to check Cruzio's system status,
pay your Cruzio bill, find out more about our hours and location,
or to reach someone in customer service and technical support.
722-6200 .......... Cruzio's number in Watsonville.
To send email to Cruzio, use one of these addresses:
support@cruzio.com ......for technical support
office@cruzio.com .......for billing and ordering information
Cruzio's locations:
Santa Cruz: 903 Pacific Avenue, Suite 101, Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Watsonville: Plaza Vigil, 23 E. Beach Street, Watsonville, CA 95076
Cruzio's hours:
Sales hours: 10am-6pm, Monday through Friday; 10 am - 2 pm Saturday
Summer hours: 9am - 6pm, Monday through Friday, 9am - 2pm Saturday
Technical support: 8am to 6pm, Mon to Fri, 10am - 2pm Saturday
System monitoring, including customer-alerted emergencies, 24 hours
per day, 365 days per year (leap years, 366 days)
Thanks very much from Cruzio:
Chris, Peggy, Julianne, Mark, Stephen, Paul, Gershom,
Jessi, James, Juana, Nikkie, Mike, Don, Bruce, Edgar,
Brian, Westi, Andrew, Jaime, another Chris,
yet another Chris, Diana, and Maria;
our awesome summer interns, Peter, Doreen, Shogo, Tommy & Michael
Jake, Annika, and Carly (the kids)
Jake's summary of an anti-gun control argument:
"There are a lot of crazy people out there, so
everyone should be armed."
